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Daily Vocab for Various Competitive Exams

Vocabulary is an important part of English that helps you deal with all kinds of questions in objective as well as descriptive papers of various exams. You can learn new words daily from our Daily Word List. Learn the words and make your own sentences on the basis of the given word list. Here are a few words and phrases from articles published in a reputed Newspaper.

THREATS TO GLOBAL GROWTH MODERATE NARENDRA MODI'S ELECTION PROSPECTS:

In January, this column highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s (1) streak of lucky breaks (‘‘Modi is a Very Lucky Man’). These included a widely forecast (2) surge in global GDP growth in 2018, (3) spurring rapid Indian growth in his final 18 months in office and boosting his prospects in the 2019 general election. Recent events cast doubt on the strength of the global growth surge. This, in turn, casts doubts on whether India will surge forward on a global wave, aiding BJP electorally. The biggest threat to global growth is the aggressive trade bullying by US President Donald Trump, aimed especially at China. Trump was willing to (4) exempt countries that followed his idea of fair trade practices, and this might cover Europe and Japan. It will not cover China.

Trading Tariffs

Then, on April 2, China retaliated mildly with import duties on just $3 billion worth of US exports, including pork, nuts and wine. This mild approach was clearly aimed at saving face while avoiding an all-out trade war that would be a loss-loss for both sides. But Trump angrily hit back the very next day by proposing higher tariffs on a new list of 1,300 Chinese exports worth $50 billion. (5) Feathers ruffled, China, within 24 hours, threatened a tit-for-tat levy of 25% on $50 billion worth of US goods such as soya beans, aircraft, large cars and chemicals. Soybeans are an extremely important export item for the US mid-West, which usually votes heavily Republican. Hitting the income of US soybean farmers could hit Trump politically in the mid-West in the crucial Congressional elections in November. Far from cooling down, Trump on April 5, threatened tariffs on another $100 billion of Chinese exports. He said he had authorized the US trade representative to examine which Chinese exports should be targeted. (6) Undeterred, China declared that it, too, was looking into appropriate counter-measures.

Optimists think that both the US and China are using extravagant threats mainly to impress their own domestic audiences and will stop short of calamitous action. The stock markets are down, but not by much. Money usually floods out of emerging markets into safe (7) havens in a global crisis. Right now, emerging markets have stood up pretty well to all the bad news, because of the belief that things will not really be so bad. Instead of global money flooding into the US as a safe haven, there is only (8) trickle. The US dollar has remained relatively weak.

Trump’s track record suggests that trade optimists are partially, or wholly, wrong. He has repeatedly (9) sacked moderates in his administration and replaced them with hardline yes-men. He believes he can use threats of trade war to burnish his own patriotic credentials among US voters and convince them that harsh medicine is required to force China to behave. However, attempts to make China (10) kowtow could backfire. Maybe behind-the-scenes negotiations will cool tempers. But a ruinous trade war that hits global growth cannot be ruled out. Trump’s aggression is not limited to China. He has petitioned the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to force India to stop all export subsidies.